


When the ending is not the end

by Lilith_the_ancient



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post Seine, ghost!Javert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 20:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/853564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith_the_ancient/pseuds/Lilith_the_ancient
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Valvert gift exchange challenge: Ghost/Guardian angel Javert (post-Seine).</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the ending is not the end

**Author's Note:**

  * For [javertderailed](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=javertderailed).



‘Death is peaceful,’ an old priest once told Javert. ´Death is glorious,’ had one of the revolutionary boys proclaimed. ‘Death is a release from all care and worry. Do not weep for me child,’ his mother had said.

In fact, death was none of those things. It was more painful and took longer than Javert had anticipated. He didn’t see a white light, the pearly gates or the flames of hell. Instead there was the freezing cold all around him and the burning pain in his lungs as water invaded his body. He had hoped that once it was over, it would be ‘OVER’. Big, black, blissful ‘no-being’. That he would just simply stop. The full and complete end to any awareness.

It wasn’t. Not quite.

True, he could no longer see, feel, hear or taste, and yet there was awareness.

Slowly, Javert did not know if minutes had passed or centuries, it was impossible to tell, the awareness was turning into consciousness, thoughts were starting to form again, though they were disjointed and confused, like swimming through molasses. There was still an absence of all senses, but there was a strong feeling of purpose, like an invisible line was tugging at Javert´s being. 

He slowly started to realize that where first was indiscernible greyness, slowly colours began to appear, then shapes, then things. He was in a house. He could look around, even though he could not see himself and he doubted he actually had eyes, not like he used to at least, but sight was definitely progress.

So he was going to haunt this house then? It did not look familiar at all. He was in what appeared to be a neat, but spartan bedroom with a wooden bed, a dresser and a chair with a wash basin on top. The only distinguishing features were two ugly silver candle sticks on the dresser and a large cross hanging above it.

Javert wondered if it wasn’t some rule that ghosts haunted a place that bore their memories. He had no recollection of this place whatsoever and was very confused. That was until the door opened and Jean Valjean walked in…

*

If he had a voice, Javert would have yelled in frustration. If he had tangible limbs, he would have smashed his fist into the wall. After all he had done to get away from this man, to rid them both of each other´s presence, this is where he was brought to, even after death. God or faith or whatever it was that was playing this cruel trick on Javert definitely had a nasty sense of irony.

Was this a punishment? To spend the afterlife watching the man who had caused his biggest crisis of faith and, unknowingly,  his death? Was he linked to the last person he had interacted with in life? Or was Valjean simply the one man who had made the most lasting impression on Javert’s pitiful soul? Was he here with a purpose? And if so, what could it be? Was he being showed that he had made a mistake by letting this man go?

Meanwhile, Valjean was not doing anything particular. He splashed some water on his face, then started to polish the candlesticks. Not really a grand design of any sorts.

Javert was put out. He considered what his next course of action should be. He tried moving and found that, indeed, his point of view moved. He discovered he could move through furniture and walls, though that was hardly surprising, considering he had no visible or tangible body. He explore this new discovery by moving throughout the house. However, when he wanted to leave it, he felt an irresistible tug preventing it and pulling him back.

He tried it multiple times, just to find that he seemed to be stuck to the general vicinity of Jean Valjean.

Marvelous.

If Javert had arms he would have crossed them and if he could breathe, he would have huffed in annoyance.

*

Weeks passed.

Most of the time Javert drifted in and out of consciousness, one moment scattered and ethereal, the other almost solid enough to move the air around him or to show up as a faint shimmer. But whenever he had a presence, he always found himself somewhere near Valjean. Out of sheer boredom and because he did not really have another choice, Javert started to begrudgingly pay attention to the man´s daily business.

Valjean´s life was far from exciting. He would get up early, wash and dress. Then he would partake breakfast with his daughter. They would either go for a walk afterwards or he would escort her to the house Javert remembered from the night of the barricade. The one they brought the dying boy to. Javert found out that the boy had not died. He was, in fact recovering and he and Valjean´s daughter were engaged to be married. Valjean never went inside with her.

To his surprise, Javert realized that Valjean´s ´daughter´ was in fact the child of the prostitute he had arrested in Montreil sur Mer. So not only had Valjean spoken the truth about needing to retrieve her child, he went beyond what he had promised the dying woman by raising the child himself. The girl did not seem to be aware of her history.

Javert had never forgotten the pitiful woman dying in his presence or Valjean, overcome with emotion, blaming him for her death, and while he knew deep inside that those words were motivated by grief instead of reason and that Fantine had been at death´s door long before Javert had come to arrest Valjean, something inside him was comforted by the knowledge that her dying wish, for her daughter to grow up happy, had been granted.

Valjean spent his afternoons alone. He would look for any chores that needed to be done or he would write letters. He did not seem to have a job, but he dedicated himself to charity. Everyday around five he walked around Paris giving out alms to the street children and other beggars. His route would terminate at a church where he prayed and talked to the pastor.

The girl would be back for supper which they again partook together and she would usually spend chattering merrily about the boy. Valjean regarded her with a strange mixture of joy and sadness.

Before retiring to bed, Valjean would read, the girl would usually join him with her needlework or a book of her own. Out of sheer boredom Javert had once read all the titles of the books Valjean possessed. He recognised very few and imagined they would probably not be to his taste. To be honest, he had never been too fond of reading, especially not if it concerned fiction.

Javert still wondered why he was here. The things he had seen over the time spent as Valjean’s ghost only made him more convinced that he had made the right decision. Valjean truly had changed, he lived a pious life. The only flaw that could be found in his character was that he was _too_ _nice_. He lived for others. For his daughter’s happiness, for the health and safety of street urchins, for god, never for his own needs.

Javert though that half of those people hardly deserved such kindness. He still considered justice more important, though he agreed to see justice as a broader concept than just the law. Maybe that was the problem? He was sent back to realize that his ways had been wrong and that Valjean’s way of living was the right one. But what would be the point? It wans’t like he could do his life over or could make any actual changes in this form.

Another idea seem more plausible: he was to wait for Valjean to live out his life and once he was dead, he would be the one to pass judgement on him. Yes, that had to be it. Very well, Javert could see reason in that, it was after all he, who had thwarted Valjean and prevented him from doing more good deeds. It would be just.

That meant, however, that Javert had a lot of time to kill, as he expected Valjean, with his extraordinary strength and health to live to a very old age.

He spent it mostly as a relatively detached observer of Valjean’s life, though it sometimes made him feel like a creeper, especially at moments when Valjean was sleeping or getting ready for bed. He wondered if he should do the polite thing and move to the next room at such moments or if such human sentiments did not apply to ghosts.

He found that with time, his hearing had improved. Where fist he heard muffled bits of sentences he had to piece together, he now could easily follow all conversations, even from another room. Sometimes he would catch a whiff of smell from the fresh flowers Cosette would bring in every few days.

His appearance became more visible to himself as well: if he thought about stretching his arm, he saw it move, though pale and translucent, and if he then reached out to touch something, he could even feel it a little.

This gave him an idea.

From then on, Javert would try to move things. It did not go well at all at first, but after a lot of concentration and exercise he had managed to blow out a candle, then to turn the page of a book and once even to knock a glass off a table, for which he immediately felt guilty.

After a while, Valjean had to acknowledge that he had somehow procured some kind of phantom, who seemed overall not too unfriendly. As he did with most things in life, Valjean took it in stride, adding an extra prayer to his daily routine for this ‘lost soul’.

*

The Valjean that Javert gotten to see in the next weeks and months was very different from the man he thought he knew. Javert had always seen him as someone very strong, both physically and mentally. With him Valjean had always been strict and hard, almost confrontational. At home the man was gentle, soft spoken and humble. He talked little and smiled even less. He was loving to his daughter, respectful to his superiors and kind those less fortunate.

Reluctantly Javert grew to respect him, then to like him. Therefore it troubled him that Valjean seemed to be growing more and more withdrawn and morose. Both his health and spirits were deteriorating. It was not hard to find the cause of this. His daughter, who seemed to be the only person he had a close relationship with and whom he loved deeply, was about to get married and leave his life. Blinded by her love, she did not seem to notice her father´s distress.

Javert thought that surely she and her paramour would not be adverse to Valjean visiting them often? Their houses were walking distance from each other and Cosette seemed to be very attached to her father. This was confirmed when the boy, supported by Cosette came to visit Valjean and the couple revealed that they would like Valjean to live with them at Marius’ grandfather’s mansion after the wedding.

To Javert’s utter bewilderment, Valjean, instead of happily accepting, took Marius apart and revealed to the boy his criminal background, but had somehow managed to paint himself in the worst possible light. He then explained that for Cosette’s sake he would go away as to eliminate any risk of his past tarnishing the girl’s future.

The boy, unaware of the full truth and only thinking of his fiancée’s well-being, promised to keep Valjean’s secret and to care for Cosette for the rest of their days.

After that, Valjean swiftly made preparations to leave and sell the house on their wedding day.

*

Javert was extremely annoyed with Valjean´s stubbornness. Surely if he could see the good in the man, then his own daughter and son in law would definitely be able to look past his mistakes and past? He had saved both their lives and brought them together, they owed him as much! It was Valjean’s right to spend the rest of his days in their home, instead of hiding away in some monastery. Javert would simply not have it!

Unfortunately there was not much he could do about it. So he threw a tantrum.

As Valjean was packing he would find things suddenly missing from his suitcase and back where he was certain he had taken them from. Candles would blow out, even though there was no wind to cause this. When a book spontaneously fell from a shelf on top of his head as he was closing the suitcase, he had to acknowledge his supernatural companion.

“You don’t want me to leave, I take it?” he said to the room at large.

‘Of course not, you old fool!’ Javert wanted to scream.

“I’m sorry to leave you alone. I reckon it must be lonely. But don’t worry, I’m sure someone new will soon move in here and you’d have some entertainment. Surely a vibrant young family is much more fun to haunt than a boring old man?”

‘You are completely missing the point! You are insufferable!’ thought Javert. Then something registered about the words Valjean had said. What if Valjean would go and Javert would not be allowed to follow? If he would be left in this old house, the last link to his human life disappearing?

Javert was suddenly frightened. No matter how mad he had been at being stuck with Valjean, being stuck alone without the ability to do something, anything, was much more maddening. He had gotten used to observing Valjean, yes, even gotten fond of him. If he would go away and leave him behind, he feared he might go insane.

He desperately slammed doors and rattled windows, threw down books and blew out candles, but nothing seemed to sway Valjean’s resolve. When the coach came, he boarded it with a last glance at his house.

*

What Javert feared had not happened. Making all that ruckus had drained his energy and he dissolved. When he regained consciousness he was at the convent, together with Valjean. He was relieved for himself, but his relieve lasted only shortly. At the convent, Valjean was slowly wasting away. He ate little and spoke even less. He occupied his days with prayer and reading and sometimes he would take out some old thing that used to belong to Cosette and look at it with barely contained tears.

One time he went to take one of her old handkerchiefs out of his drawer, Javert had grabbed it out of frustration and would not let go. Valjean started, then smiled faintly.

“So you’ve followed me here? Have you not grown bored with this sentimental fool?” Despite the self-deprecating words, Valjean seemed uplifted and he left the handkerchief in the drawer.

After that Javert made an effort to show his existence as much as he could by moving small things orwalking through Valjean, which he seemed to register as a sudden chill, but no matter how much he tried, Valjean’s decline was irreversible. And a few weeks after Cosette and Marius’ wedding it was clear that he would not live another day.

Cosette and Marius came to the convent that night, all apologies and tears. It seemed they had finally learned the truth. And while it did make Valjean happy, it was a little too late. He was clearly dying and no words of love could reverse that process. Javert looked on with sadness. If someone deserved to live into old age and see his grandchildren be born and grow, it was this man. There was nothing left of the old resentment Javert had once felt towards him, only tenderness and pity.

“Do not pity him, Javert,” suddenly came a voice. It was soft and clear, like Christmas bells ringing. Javert turned around and saw Fantine, looking healthy and radiant. His initial reaction was to recoil, disappear, flee, for surely she was there to deal them both their dues: to take Valjean into heaven and smite Javert to the fires of hell for the way he had treated them both, for committing suicide, for failing whatever task he had been sent back to perform. But no, Javert could not flee. He would face his judgement with dignity.

The spectre sensed his distress and stood in front of him, laying a gentle hand on his cheek. Javert was surprised that he could feel the touch and that it was warm.  
  
“Don’t fear me, I am not here to do you harm,” said Fantine, she smiled. “I am merely here to look at my child and to welcome the kind Monsieur who raised her to cross over. But I see he already has a guardian.”

It took Javert a moment to realize she meant him.

“Me? Was that what I was sent here to do?” asked Javert, then his face fell. “Then I have failed.”  
  
“Sent here? Dear Inspector, no one has sent you here. This was your own design. You could have crossed over, yet you chose to linger.”

“What?! No, that can’t be true! I did not choose such a thing, why would I?” exclaimed Javert. But even as he said those words, he realize that it must have been true. Confused and shaken, he had clung to the only constant and familiar person in his life, choosing that over the unknown. He never truly had wanted to be rid of Valjean, had enjoyed their game of cat-and-mouse, had lived for it. And being stubborn, he had wanted Valjean to judge him instead of some God he had no true knowledge of.

He found he was not upset by this. He was glad he was here to welcome Valjean into the afterlife, though he doubted Valjean would be happy to see him.

The man in question had gone more pale and silent, his eyes were looking beyond his crying daughter, in fact, they were looking directly at where Fantine was standing. He smile faintly and whispered: “I am ready Fantine.”

The transition was smooth and natural: it looked like Valjean simply got up from a chair, if not for his body that remained seated. He made a few unsure steps towards the woman in white, who welcomed him with an embrace, which he returned. They exchanged a few words, too faint for Javert to overhear and then Valjean turned his head towards him.

Javert did not know what kind of expression he had made, but it caused Valjean to approach him with a soft smile. He took Javert’s hand and, yes, he could feel that too, the simple touch bringing him so much joy.

“It was you, wasn’t it? My ghostly companion?”

Javert was unsure what to say. Would Valjean be disappointed? Had he hoped it was someone else? Javert hesitantly nodded.

“I suspected as much. I’m glad I was right. Thank you.”  
  
Javert was speechless. Did that mean he was forgiven? Did that mean he had managed to lighten Valjean’s loneliness even a little? All he could do was to mutely press his hand in return.

“I think it is time for both of you to come with me,” said Fantine and the room behind her was suddenly bathed in otherworldly light. It made Javert’s heart soar with a lightness he had never known. He hardly noticed that he was still holding Valjean’s hand as they stepped forward.


End file.
